Sociocultural characteristics and responses to cancer education materials among African American women

Abstract

Culture has been linked to cancer-related beliefs and practices. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of culture on responses to cancer education materials. Religiosity, collectivism, racial pride, and time orientation were measured among 1,227 African American women. Analyses tested the hypothesis that women scoring higher and lower on each construct would differ in their liking, attention, attitude change, recall, and perceived relevance of tailored materials that did or did not frame cancer issues in a cultural context. Responses to culturally tailored materials were no different than responses to other materials, regardless of women's cultural characteristics. However, for all types of materials, women scoring high on religiosity or racial pride paid more attention to materials, liked them more, and found them more personally relevant than women low on these constructs (all ps<.005). Women scoring high on present time orientation paid less attention to materials than women low on this construct (P<.01). In this population of women, cultural characteristics appear to moderate responses to tailored health education materials.